Dead Reckoning (911 Book 3)

by Grace Hamilton

  Sammi looked to David, a scowl darkening her face. “See? I was right to say don’t tell her. I could see this coming, sure as Christmas.”

  Sara and Ava both glared to her as Jessica whispered to her father, and then Sara pushed again. “Why haven’t you done something? And what about me? Why wouldn’t you have told me, before now? You were like…” Sara stopped, choking back a sob that had suddenly popped into her throat. It was true. They’d been like family after she’d lost Ava and everyone else, whether she’d realized it at the time or not. This felt like yet another betrayal in a long list of them.

  “We didn’t know who we could trust after the attack, Sara,” David said gently, the exhaustion returning to his features. He sat down on a crate with a sigh. “It’s not that we didn’t want to do anything; it was waiting for the right moment. And you… we were going to tell you soon. We just had to be sure it was safe. For everyone.”

  “If the right moment isn’t the government being replaced by a bunch of fucking Nazis,” Ava broke in, “what is?”

  David met Sara’s eyes. “We can call up two, maybe three thousand people. All trained in weapons and survival techniques. They have supplies, access to vehicles, and a determination to fight back against the forces which are destroying this country.”

  Ava was channeling Sara’s anger now, and she leaned forward. “But when? What are you waiting for?”

  Mace hugged Jessica to his chest, glancing between the man and women in front of him as he did. “Look, we have been waiting, yes, and we didn’t make our presence known to ARM because, hell, any one of them could have been a spy for the Council. The Council can’t be fought on the streets and destroyed on the streets—we have to hit them where they live.”

  Sara had heard this kind of procrastination before. The time was never right. “If you wait for the time to be right,” she hissed, “you’ll wait until everyone dies of old age!”

  David looked at his shoes, and though he spoke quietly, his voice was full of steel. “Sara, stop. The Network is about survival—first and foremost, survival—its secondary purpose is to fight back… but when it’s appropriate. I think that time might be approaching,” he added, meeting Sara’s eyes and nodding, as if he’d come to some private conclusion. “Tell her, Mace.”

  Mace stood up, setting Jessica down and pointing her toward a shelf where some snacks were, distracting her. “Get us some food, darling?” When she headed across the shelter, he stood before them digging his hands into his pockets, and he spoke softly but firmly. “You know they’ve announced they’re going to execute your father…”

  Sara felt her eyes blazing and glared back at him.

  “They’re going to do it on the roof of the State House in Indianapolis. They’ve been building up to an event like this for months. They’ve been working on re-establishing the TV and radio networks. It’s why they didn’t kill Parker straight away. He’s become a hero for the resistance, whipping people up into thinking they could fight back. Did it not occur to you how he did it? How do people over in New York know about James Parker, ex-cop, 911 dispatcher, over in Seelyville? It’s not by word of mouth, Sara. Everyone’s too afraid to congregate, to talk.”

  Sara’s brows furrowed. “The Network has been telling people about him?”

  “Yes,” said David. “Your father is a brilliant and charismatic leader. And what’s more, he didn’t seek it out for himself—it was thrust upon him, and he took it. The way he rescued you and others proved it, as did his sacrifice, just as you told me about it. The American people need a hero. Someone who’s like them. So, we gave them James Parker. The Council have the chance now to discredit and execute him on Saturday. In three days. They want to execute American hope, Sara—it’s not only your father they’re trying to get rid of.”

  Sara caught her breath, having it all laid out like that, as she looked around the shelter to the adults she’d come to know and trust in the past months. Barely holding in a scream, she turned to David and asked, “And what are you going to do about it?”

  “We hear Grayland, the head of the Council, and their newly installed stooge president, Lassiter, are going to be there at the execution. We’re going to kill them and give the Council the bloodiest nose it’s ever likely to receive.”

  Sara sat down hard, reaching for Ava’s hand for support. She couldn’t take in what she was hearing.

  David continued. “And if we can, we’re going to make Ava’s crazy plan become a reality. We’ll help you to rescue your father, James Parker.”

  27

  Parker looked through his binoculars at the Indiana State House in Indianapolis.

  Rain misted the lenses and the wind pushed against his hands, trying to shake his view, but he could see the domed, neoclassical building and the work that was going on there to prepare for his execution. On the roof over the portico, workers toiled in the rain to finish a flat platform of wooden beams and scaffolding. Technicians were setting up a generator, trailing cables to a series of TV cameras. Other workers were lugging around jerry cans of gasoline, and yet others were constructing a metal cage in the center of the platform.

  Parker passed the binoculars to Gace, who was lying next to him on the roof of the 13-story State of Indiana Government building directly in front of the State House. The building took up a whole office block and had provided space for support services at the State House back before the EMP Event. Now, half of it had been burnt out and the rest of it deserted. Parker and the Mandingos had had no trouble getting into the building through a side entrance—they hadn’t even met a guard. The Council’s forces obviously weren’t as widespread as they’d thought, or as in-depth as the Council propaganda suggested to the populace.

  They’d spent the night out of the rain and worsening storm, but now, on the morning of Parker’s fated execution, Parker and Gace had come up to scope the site and make a real plan.

  When Parker had busted out of the prison, before he’d gotten half a mile, he’d run into Gace and the other Mandingos. With Calhoun’s help, they’d broken into the armory and made their way out of the prison with only light causalities. Even Henshaw, the trustee janitor who’d been threatened with fire to get Parker talking, was with them. Understandably, that stunt had turned him into one of the prison’s angrier escapees. If they’d expected him to feel threatened and return to his usual accommodating self, they had sorely underestimated him.

  At first, the escapees had scattered off the road to evade what they’d thought were FEMA forces, but when Parker had stuck his head through the shattered windshield, his face slick with rain, and called to Gace, they’d sprinted from the trees and climbed into the truck. If the road they’d escaped along, following Calhoun’s directions, hadn’t curved toward the back of the prison, he never would have met up with them, and so Parker had to think that that had been part of her plan, on some level—even if he had driven out through the front, the prison’s meandering road would have reconnected them, given time.

  After that, Parker had driven as hard as he could, for as long as he’d dared, before they’d dumped the truck thirty miles outside of Indianapolis and spent the night in an abandoned school. Three Mandingos—Face, Slammer, and Silverdollar—had gone in search of food and fresh clothes while Parker had explained to Gace and the others what had happened to Kleet.

  Gace’s anger was hot and hard, and Parker thought maybe the retribution for Kleet’s demise might be directed at him. That wasn’t the case, however. Eventually, Gace stopped punching holes in walls and assumed command of the Mandingo gang.

  They were mountains of men, their bodies a testament to the constant workouts undertaken to relieve the tedium of prison life. Some had been there many years and were as fit and fierce now as they’d been before their incarcerations. They were dealers, pimps, runners, protection racketeers, rapists, and murderers—but they were also all Parker had to help him fight back against the Council.

  And they were ready to fight.

&
nbsp; They wanted to avenge the death of their leader, to somehow immortalize his honor, and they all took their lead from Gace, who approved of Parker. The man respected the way Parker had taken all the shit the Council had thrown at him, and how he had stood up to Gace on the first day they’d met.

  As a result, Gace had promised the Mandingos’ service to Parker for the duration of the mission—and even though they were men across the divide from Parker in every possible way, he knew their code wouldn’t allow them to refuse. Wherever they’d come from, whatever they’d done, these guys were better men than the Council in every conceivable way.

  On Thursday morning, the Council had produced a leaflet, reading: Public Execution of the Traitor James Parker will take place on Saturday at the State House in Indianapolis to coincide with the reinstatement of radio and TV transmissions across the nation, for those who can still receive them.

  “How dey gonna execute you, if’n they ain’t got you?” Gace had asked quite reasonably, looking at the leaflet.

  “Because they’re going to execute someone and tell the world it’s me.” With that in mind, Parker had explained his theory on Sara, and how easily they’d convinced him that she was dead.

  “Sheeit, man. And I thought I was a bad dude. I ain’t got nuthin’ on these muhfuckas. What’s our plan?”

  Two days later, they were on top of the burnt-out State Offices block, looking down on the State House. Apart from the activity on the roof, and a few FEMA Jeeps parked outside on the concourse next to the statue of the Civil War governor, Oliver Morton, there wasn’t much activity on the ground.

  Downtown Indianapolis wasn’t the hive of life and activity it had been before the EMP Event. The offices were empty, the streets deserted. Most people had deserted the residential blocks, moving beyond the suburbs to try to rebuild their lives, grow some food, and create communities around agricultural and fresh water resources. That meant Parker’s group’s progress into the city on foot hadn’t been impeded. They’d come in at night, and then realized, once they’d circumvented a couple of FEMA patrols, that they probably could have come in during daylight hours anyway—such was the scarcity of troops in the city.

  The week of continuing storms had aided their ability to stay off the Council’s radar, too—the filthy weather meant that, if anything, FEMA troops hadn’t been keen on making extra patrols, or even on being particularly observant when they did attempt to find Parker and the others.

  Gace swept the State House with binoculars again while Parker assessed the defenses. The main wooden doors at the top of the steps had been reinforced with concrete blocks to stop anyone from ramming them with a vehicle. The blocks would also provide cover for the defenders. Their covert reconnaissance on all other sides of the Indiana limestone-constructed building, with its coppered roofs and dome, had shown similar augmentations on all sides. If Parker and the Mandingos were going to gain entry to the building, they were going to have to do it the hard way.

  Exposed and on foot.

  It was a beautiful building, Parker thought, exactly the kind of place he would have taken Sara to visit as a child. It reeked of history and confidence. And now the Council would destroy that legacy as surely as they were destroying the United States. The idea of building a place of public and political execution on the roof of a building that had represented the freedoms and morality of a nation tore a hole in Parker’s heart.

  Gace nudged him.

  He’d directed the binoculars to southeast of the State House, and high in the sky. Through the dark cloud and lashing rain, Parker caught the belly light of an aircraft before he heard it. As the speck grew, he realized it was a helicopter; closer, he could hear the gruff, blattering grunts of its engine. It wasn’t a black Huey, of the kind that had been distributing leaflets trumpeting this farrago of injustice.

  Parker registered the shape and color immediately upon seeing it.

  The green body and white-top paint job told him immediately that this Sikorsky SH-3 Sea King would have a designated call sign known across the land and the wider world.

  Marine One.

  The helo dropped and headed in, nose down, toward the State House, and a convoy of ten 5-ton FEMA trucks, followed by a line of F-350s and a gaggle of well-manned Jeeps, turned onto the concourse.

  Parker knew it was all for show, staged for the camera. That was the whole point. The show. Not the truth.

  “Shit,” Parker swore as the troops began to disembark from their transports. All were in full ACU, ACH, and body armor, and carrying a full complement of weaponry. Specifically, M16s and side arms. The F-350s, with their mounted M240s, positioned themselves at the four corners of the building as Marine One touched down in the parking lot.

  With its rotors still spinning, the passengers began to disembark and head toward the State House. First came the fake president, saluting the FEMA captain who rushed to meet Marine One, standing to attention as the door opened. Once they were clear of the still rotating blades, a yes-man with the president raised an umbrella and held it above him. Next, Grayland, followed by Warden Spencer, stepped onto the tarmac. Grayland walked stiffly with his walking stick, pulling his camel-hair coat around him against the elements. Behind him, escorted by two uniformed marshals, was Rayleigh. His hands were handcuffed behind him and his nose was bloody. Then, finally, behind Rayleigh, another prisoner emerged, propped up by marshals and wearing an orange jumpsuit. He was draped in chains. A grubby white eyepatch hung over his left eye.

  Parker snatched the binoculars from Gace and zeroed in on the Sea King.

  The prisoner who looked like Parker, who was meant as his stand-in, stumbled as if in great pain, or as if he’d been drugged. His face was swollen with so many bruises it looked like he’d been worked over with tire irons. His identifying features had been comprehensively wrecked, but he was standing.

  And that’s when it hit Parker.

  His beard had been shaved off, his tattoos covered with the jumpsuit’s long sleeves and high neck, and there was a short afro wig pulled tight over his head.

  But Parker still recognized the man who was to be executed in his place.

  Kleet.

  Sara, Sammi, and ten Networkers from the surrounding area took the forest house before dawn on Saturday morning. It was the house Ava had seen the FEMA troops resting in, just before she’d witnessed the first leaflet drop. She’d located it on the map, and Sara had been adamant about leading the raid.

  There’d been only five FEMA troops at the house. Three bunked inside and two on guard. They’d all been dispatched with suppressed SIG Sauer P226s without a shot being returned. The bodies were piled in a back room of the property, and Sara had taken charge of making an inventory of what they’d liberated.

  The Networkers were a motley bunch of preppers who were well armed and well drilled. They’d answered Mace’s call on the microwave relays and arrived at the shelter in Seelyville within seven hours. More messages would amass a larger force, but David had felt a stealth attack on the execution site in Indianapolis was more likely to succeed than an all-out assault made without any adequate command and control apparatus.

  The forest house base was everything Sara had expected it to be—and more. It had rooms full of weapons and FEMA issue ACU, ACH and IOTVs, as well as ammunition. Not to mention three reserve F-350s with mounted M240s, food stocks, fuel, and all manner of survival equipment. It was a treasure trove of what they needed, but it was only when Sara found the oilskin-covered pouch of papers and laminates in a dead captain’s pack that she felt excitement return to her bones.

  They had everything they needed now.

  Sara would never forget what had happened at the prison in Terre Haute, but perhaps saving her dad, and striking a savage blow against the Council, would begin to take the edge off of the memory—at least for a while.

  Dawn came with more rain, lightning, and thunder as the storms that had ravaged the sky for the last few days rolled on, but Sara knew that weath
er was not going stop her getting to Indianapolis.

  Within the hour, the F-350s were ready, fully fueled, loaded, and ready to roll.

  “Sara,” Sammi said as she pulled her aside, her tone serious. She paused after getting her attention, looking so unlike the 50-something nurse Sara had known, now that she was locked into her FEMA uniform. “Ever since you broke into our house and brought the storm with you, I knew that one day another storm would come. Don’t ask me how I knew, but I did. I want you to know I had two choices when Ralph had the magnum on you; I didn’t have to shoot him. I had half a mind to shoot you myself. Because I knew it meant things were changing.”

  Sara felt her eyes widening, but Sammi held up her hand and put a finger on Sara’s lips to shush her. “Wait. The choice was to avert the storm or accept it. I accepted the storm, Sara. You are the storm. You’re full of thunder and lightning. Whatever happens today, I want you to know that I made the right choice. David feels the same. He’s just too caught up in his plans for the New Civil War to take the time to tell you. He would have waited years for the right moment for the Network to act. He knew he had to wait for the right person to lead, though. You’re that person. He’s sure of it, and I’m sure of it, too. You will prevail.”

  Sara gulped down the emotion that had risen in her chest, shocked silent.

  She remembered Margret’s talk before the assault on the facility that had ended in complete failure. Margret had been wrong to depend on her to succeed with the leadership of the Billtown ARM: After the raid, she’d run away, deserted them. And they’d scattered on the wind. Regardless of any letter Margret might have believed in, or any plan, Sara hadn’t been ready, and she’d come to grips with that in the weeks since. She’d accepted that whatever Margret had thought she’d seen, it wasn’t there. It wasn’t in her. And yet, here was a woman she trusted like family telling her the same thing all over again.